While marketing automation by itself is extremely powerful and is mostly based in the cloud, the effectiveness of such strategies can be enhanced by leveraging the benefits that cloud computing offers.

Not too long ago, marketers had to inevitably choose between two options - keep marketing budgets low through marketing broadcasts, or spend more on highly targeted and personalized marketing strategies. Not surprisingly then, low margin products (like soaps or toothpastes, for examples) were marketed over TV while high margin enterprise software tools (like ERP software) had dedicated sales managers reaching out to prospective clients for business.

Automation has provided marketers with a third option - keep marketing budgets low, and still uniquely reach out to each of your prospects through personalized and targeted messages. Today, it is possible to build an efficient marketing campaign for every prospect based on the way they react and engage with your campaigns. What’s more - all of this process is automated and does not consume as much marketing resource as a personalized sales team would.

Before we proceed, it is important to understand how marketing automation works at a holistic level. To begin with, each prospect is classified into a broad category based on their profile - that includes their gender, age group, location, product they are interested in, where their lead was sourced from, and so on. The objective here is to drive each of these prospects into a sales funnel that is customized to target similar customer profiles. Once into the funnel, the prospect is taken through a series of marketing messages and ‘IF-THEN’ loops. In essence, the subsequent message and engagement strategy for any particular prospect depends on how they reacted to, or engaged with, the previous communication. This way, your prospect sees an extremely targeted message at every stage of the buying cycle and this is designed to deliver the maximum return on your marketing investment.

Enhancing marketing automation with cloudWhile marketing automation by itself is extremely powerful and is mostly based in the cloud, the effectiveness of such strategies can be enhanced by leveraging the benefits that cloud computing offers. Businesses routinely engage in an omni-channel marketing strategies that target prospects through a variety of strategies like search engine advertising, social media marketing, email marketing and offline outreach. Often times, the same prospect is reached out multiple times through these various platforms and a business might have several automated campaigns running in parallel with the same customer. Cloud tools make it possible to bring data from these multiple channels under one umbrella and this not only saves marketing resources, but also makes targeting more comprehensive and integrated.

Cloud integration also helps with machine learning. An integrated marketing automation tool can use the data points from thousands of users to identify behavioral patterns that trigger conversion and could tweak the marketing campaign in real-time to increase conversion rates. A number of cloud-based marketing tools targeted at small and medium businesses can already execute conversion optimization through multivariate testing tools and machine learning is essentially a sophisticated deployment of similar technology.

Finally, cloud integration with marketing automation is also boosted by big data analytics. Cloud based automation tools can integrate with third party big data analytics tools in real-time to help these tools identify patterns in user engagement. This could include products that a prospective customer of a certain demographic is most likely to buy, the outreach message that converts the best for those customers and also the time of the day they convert the best.

In all, a cloud based marketing automation tool can help businesses build a comprehensive intelligence platform that can go beyond optimizing marketing resources and can instead assist in market research, operations management and gathering marketing intelligence.

About Harry TrottHarry Trott is an IT consultant from Perth, WA. He is currently working on a long term project in Bangalore, India. Harry has over 7 years of work experience on cloud and networking based projects. He is also working on a SaaS based startup which is currently in stealth mode.

There's no doubt that blockchain technology is a powerful tool for the enterprise, but bringing it mainstream has not been without challenges. As VP of Technology at 8base, Andrei is working to make developing a blockchain application accessible to anyone. With better tools, entrepreneurs and developers can work together to quickly and effectively launch applications that integrate smart contracts and blockchain technology. This will ultimately accelerate blockchain adoption on a global scale.

Cryptomage, Inc. is a dynamic hi-tech ICT company offering products and services in the cybersecurity area. We deliver high quality solutions both technologically and conceptually. We have academic roots and hire scientists, cybersecurity experts, software developers and analysts. Our strategy is focused on maintaining the highest skills of our human resources. The Cryptomage team is capable of more than delivering complex solutions; we can improve the whole concept to deliver real added value to our customers.

It cannot be overseen or regulated by any one administrator, like a government or bank. Currently, there is no government regulation on them which also means there is no government safeguards over them. Although many are looking at Bitcoin to put money into, it would be wise to proceed with caution. Regular central banks are watching it and deciding whether or not to make them illegal (Criminalize them) and therefore make them worthless and eliminate them as competition. ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) are something most have no idea as to what it means and how you utilize it. Where is the "Stamp of Approval" or "Stamp of Legitimacy" on some of these Bitcoin websites (how do you know you are not dealing with a scammer?)

This week I had the pleasure of delivering the opening keynote at Cloud Expo New York. It was amazing to be back in the great city of New York with thousands of cloud enthusiasts eager to learn about the next step on their journey to embracing a cloud-first worldl."

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There's no doubt that blockchain technology is a powerful tool for the enterprise, but bringing it mainstream has not been without challenges. As VP of Technology at 8base, Andrei is working to make developing a blockchain application accessible to anyone. With better tools, entrepreneurs and developers can work together to quickly and effectively launch applications that integrate smart contracts and blockchain technology. This will ultimately accelerate blockchain adoption on a global scale.

Cryptomage, Inc. is a dynamic hi-tech ICT company offering products and services in the cybersecurity area. We deliver high quality solutions both technologically and conceptually. We have academic roots and hire scientists, cybersecurity experts, software developers and analysts. Our strategy is focused on maintaining the highest skills of our human resources. The Cryptomage team is capable of more than delivering complex solutions; we can improve the whole concept to deliver real added value to our customers.